The present invention is a refraction algorithm for use in expert system inference engines which employ CAM. It was specifically developed to overcome unnecessary overhead which the RETE algorithm introduces when a CAM is employed. The present invention was developed to-complement the algorithms described and set forth in the cited pending inventions: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/699,410, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/699,413, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/699,412.
As background for the present invention, a search for literature and patents using keywords would bring forth may references. Representative of these are the following publications and patent citations. However, none of these seem particularly relevant to our invention.